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Research Planning Event: Working on MA Dissertation Proposals

9 May 2023
Frances Rock

Frances Rock

Tuesday of week 7 (14th March 2023) from 11.10pm – midday in room 3.58 of the John Percival Building [Note unusual time and location for this session only]

This session is primarily for students currently reading for an MA in Forensic Linguistics here at Cardiff University.  It is intended to complement, rather than duplicate, the dissertation day which Virpi Ylanne-Thomas is organising (Please contact Virpi if you are a current Cardiff MA student and don’t know about this session).

During the Forensic-Linguistics-focussed session, individual students will be invited to discuss specific questions about the dissertation proposals they’re working on.  There will not be a formal presentation but you will be welcome to bring and share your problems and queries and, because a problem shared is a problem halved, we will hopefully halve them or even eradicate them. These can be questions on absolutely any aspect of dissertations and dissertation planning. There are NO stupid questions here so please feel comfortable to ask anything you like. You may want to ask about or explore such topics as:

  • Is my topic going to ‘work’?
  • Can I collect the data that I’d like to?
  • Is my plan for collecting data going to be successful?
  • Can I collect my data in a timely way?
  • What analytic methods might I consider?
  • What about theory?
  • How to I firm up my research question?
  • What specific forms of analysis might be useful?
  • What theoretical framework might be appropriate? Or comfortable to me?
  • How do I clarify my analytic focus?
  • How ‘firm’ do my plans need to be at the proposal stage?
  • What body of research literature should I be engaging with?
  • And more!

There will be various ways to ask questions:

  1. There will be an opportunity for discussion (questions, thinking aloud etc) as a group.
  2. If the discussion goes that way or it seems useful, we will have break-out groups or even one-to-one chats where you can explore your ideas and possibly solve your queries for yourself through guided discussion from a member of staff.
  3. You’ll be able to ask questions or raise concerns anonymously within the large group.  To ensure anonymity, this will use a low-tech “post box” into which everyone will post something (even if it’s just a blank page) so that no one knows who’s asked what. 🙂

In relation to all questions and topics you plan to raise, it is  extremely useful if you’re able to say “this is where I’ve got to so far” so that we can support you in as specific and focussed a way as possible. Come along if you’re at the early stages of your dissertation proposal writing but you’ll probably get even more out of the session if you’re further along and have quite specific question so try to get as far as you can with your planning, even if it’s all a bit rough and ready!  Note that this session is taking place in one of the final weeks before the spring break and your proposals are due in straight after the spring break so the timing is perfect for you to be well-underway by the time this session takes place.